(Reuters) – A union representing engineers and technical workers at Boeing Co filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the airplane maker's security personnel of stopping union members from distri buting leaflets on a labor contract ballot at the Everett factory. Boeing and the union, that represents its 23,000 engineers, are locked in a labor contract dispute. Boeing is currently beset by battery problems on board of its Dreamliner jets. The new contract proposed by Boeing is now being voted by the union members. … VP: Chavez getting 'complex and tough' treatments
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is undergoing "extremely complex and tough treatments" following cancer surgery, his vice president said Wednesday. Israel publishes some details as Australian spy mystery deepens
JERUSALEM/CANBERRA (Reuters) – Israel broke its official silence on Wednesday over the reported suicide in jail of an Australian immigrant recruited to its spy service Mossad, giving limited details about a closely guarded case that has raised questions in Israel and Australia. In an apparent reversal on previous statements, Australia's foreign minister said on Thursday his ministry had known about the man's jailing in Israel as early as February 2010. On Wednesday he said Australian diplomats in Israel only knew about the detention after his death in custody later that year. … 
TEXCOCO (Reuters) – Carlos Slim and Bill Gates, the two richest men on the planet, inaugurated a new agricultural research center outside Mexico's capital, touting the millions they have donated to bolster global food security. The two tycoons participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for new laboratories at the headquarters of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, known by its Spanish acronym CIMMYT. The new complex will double the center's capacity to develop better seeds and more productive farmers in the developing world, officials said. … 
LYNNWOOD, Wash./PARIS (Reuters) – Boeing Co said Wednesday it plans to bring its next-generation 777X jet into service by the end of the decade, a time frame that had come under question after r emarks from the company's chief executive last year. At the same time, sources familiar with the design confirmed that the 777X design is expected to have folding wingtips, a novel feature that would allow bigger wings to fit into the same-sized airport parking space as the current 777. … 
TEXCOCO, Mexico (AP) -- The research center largely responsible for launching the "green revolution" of the 1960s that dramatically raised crop yields is getting support from the world's richest men to develop genetically-modified seeds to help farmers in the developing world grow more grain in the face of a changing climatic conditions and increased demand. 
TOKYO (AP) -- North Korea's latest underground test shows it is making big strides toward becoming a true nuclear power. But the test may also reveal key clues the secretive nation might have hoped to hide about how close, or how far away, it is from fielding a nuclear weapon capable of striking the United States or its allies. 
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is justified in sharing intelligence with countries suspected of human rights abuses to protect itself, Foreign Secretary William Hague will say on Thursday, despite concerns over the torture of suspects and costly court cases. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Britain has been wrestling with how to uphold its opposition to all forms of torture whilst ensuring it could gather information about planned attacks by militants, some of which might have been obtained through ill-treatment of suspects. … 
LONDON (Reuters) – Discoveries so far of horsemeat in products sold as beef are likely to be the "tip of the iceberg", a British parliamentary report into the sc andal said on Thursday. "The scale of contamination emerging in the meat supply chain is breathtaking," said Anne McIntosh, a legislator who chairs the cross-party Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which published the report. "More revelations will doubtless come to light in the UK and across the European Union. … 
LONDON (Reuters) – Fashion retailer Republic became the latest casualty of the economic downturn on Wednesday, seeking protection from creditors and putting around 2,500 jobs at risk. The firm, which operates 121 stores across the UK with a stronger presence in the north of the country, h as appointed administrators Ernst & Young to sell the business while it continues to trade. Republic is owned by private equity firm TPG. Ernst & Young said the retailer had been hit by poor autumn trading and a rapid decline in sales in late January. It has made 150 staff at Republic's head office redundant. … 
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The boards of AMR Corp and US Airways Group Inc each met on Wednesday to approve a merger that would create the world's largest airline with an expected market value of around $11 billion, people familiar with the matter said. The all-stock merger, which is set to be announced early on Thursday, would finalize the consolidation of legacy U.S. air carriers that helped put the industry on a more solid financial footing. … 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama spoke t o Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday about North Korea's nuclear test and reaffirmed U.S. commitments to Japan's security, the White House said in a statement. "They pledged to work closely together to seek significant action at the United Nations Security Council and to cooperate on measures aimed at impeding North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs," the White House said in a statement. … 
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- A passenger plane carrying soccer fans headed for a match skidded past the landing strip and overturned in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Wednesday, killing five people, officials said. 
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is undergoing "complex" alternative treatments more than two months after having cancer surgery in Cuba, his vice president said on Wednesday. The 58-year-old socialist leader has not been seen in public since he went to Havana for the operation on December 11, his fourth surgery for cancer in 18 months. Vice President Nicolas Maduro did not give details of the alternative treatments the president was receiving. … 
NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) – Shortly after al Qaeda gunmen stormed a giant gas plant deep in the Algerian desert last month, taking hundreds of workers hostage, their leader switched on his satellite phone to ring a journalist thousands of miles away. "He told me 'I am Abu Al Bara and this is my number. Call me whenever you want'," said Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Aboulmaaly, editor-in-chief of the Nouakchott News Agency (ANI), a news website in Mauritania's capital on West Africa's Atlantic coast. "After that, we spoke many times. … 
BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian rebels fought pitched battles Wednesday against regime forces at a military base that protects a major airport in the country's north in fighting that has left more than 40 government troops dead, opposition activists said. 
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The mysterious death of an Australian prisoner in Israel has put the spotlight on a military-run censorship system that is finding it harder to black out secret information often only a mouse click away on the Internet. The case involves a man reported by Australia's ABC channel on Tuesday to have been a member of Israel's Mossad spy agency. According to the report, he committed suicide in prison in 2010 in an isolated top-security wing originally built for the assassin of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. … 
KIEV (Reuters) – Part of a structure next to the damaged nuclear reactor at Ukraine's Chernobyl power pla nt has collapsed, the authorities said on Wednesday, adding there were no injuries or any increase in radiation levels. The Emergencies Ministry said Tuesday's collapse was not of the sarcophagus covering the reactor, but part of the wall and roof of a turbine hall that caved in under the weight of snow. "There were no safety breaches," the ministry said in a statement. … 
GENEVA (Reuters) – Sri Lanka is failing to investigate alleged atrocities committed by government forces in defeating a Tamil insurgency and activists and opposition polit icians are still being killed or abducted, the United Nations said on Wednesday. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called on authorities to allow international experts in criminal and forensic investigations to help resolve outstanding wartime crimes and end impunity. … 
(Reuters) – Canada's main stock index looked set to open higher on Wednesday, helped by stronger commodity prices, with investors focused on the release of quarterly results from some of the market's biggest companies. TOP STORIES * Jack Lew, President Barac k Obama's nominee to lead the U.S. Treasury Department, faces a grilling about a big bonus he received from Citigroup and his plans for the government's finances when he testifies before a Senate panel. … 
DAMASCUS (Reuters) – MiG warplanes roar low overhead to s trike rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad on the fringes of Damascus, while artillery batteries pound the insurgents from hills overlooking a city divided between all-out war and a deceptive calm. Whole families can be obliterated by air raids that miss their targets. Wealthy Syrians or their children are kidnapped. Some are returned but people tell grim tales of how others are tortured and dumped even when the ransom is paid. … 
ISTANBUL (AP) -- Turkey loves both soccer and strong men, so it's n o surprise that Aziz Yildirim is a household name. 
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain's foreign ministry said on Wednesday it had summoned North Korea 's ambassador to stress London's condemnation of Pyongyang's nuclear test conducted a day earlier. The test, North Korea's third, drew strong condemnation from around the world, including from its only major ally China. "I summoned North Korea's ambassador today to stress in the strongest terms the UK's condemnation of yesterday's nuclear test," Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire said in a statement, adding that the test violated U.N. Security Council resolutions. … 
LONDON (Reuters) – British police investigating the hacking of mobile phones to generate stories at Rupert Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World tabloid made six more arrests of journalists or former journalists on Wednesday. The phone hacking in the new arrests was believed to have taken place in 2005 and 2006, the police said. Five suspects were arrested and taken in for questioning in London and one in Cheshire in northern England. … 
LONDON (AP) -- When it comes to mating, guppies treasure their ugly friends – because they look so good by comparison. 
MANAMA (Reuters) – For Maryam Abdullah Jawad, a Shi'ite Muslim, grief at the loss of her son p revents her even contemplating the idea of solving Bahrain's political ferment by talking to its hereditary rulers. "Ali was like a flower and they plucked him," said the 40-year-old schoolteacher, whose eldest son was killed in August 2011 aged 14 during a protest. "We cannot sit in dialogue with the Al Khalifa. … 
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran started installing a new generation of uranium enrichment machines at its Natanz nuclear site last month, Iran's atomic energy organization chief was quo ted as saying on Wednesday by Iranian media. "From last month the installation of the new generation of these machines started in the Shahid Ahmadi Roshan complex (Natanz)," Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani was quoted as saying by the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA). "We have produced the machines as planned and we are carrying out the installation gradually … to complete the tests relevant to the new generation." The U.N. … 
MALE (Reuters) – Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed took refuge in the Indian High Commission in Male on Wednesday as police attempted to arrest him, risking fresh protests by his supporters who say he was overthrown in a coup last February. Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected leader, was removed from office in contested circumstances and his supporters have frequently clashed with security forces in the Indian Ocean archipelago famous as a luxury tourist resort. …